


The Language of Power

by Polina_K_Viardo



Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: BDSM, Dwarven Culture, Fluff, Gigolas Week, Gigolas Week 3, Hurt/Comfort, Light Bondage, Power Play, Short & Sweet, but no sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-04-30 05:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5151431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polina_K_Viardo/pseuds/Polina_K_Viardo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the night before the march on the Black Gate. But sea-longing won't let Legolas sleep. Gimli offers him a secret dwarven practice that might just be the solution…</p>
<p>(For <a href="http://gigolasweek.tumblr.com/)">Gigolas week</a> Day 3: Languages)</p>
<p>[18+: This is content restricted to audiences of 18 years or over.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Language of Power

**Author's Note:**

> Rating M is only for having adult themes - there is no explicit content in the story. 
> 
> [18+: This is content restricted to audiences of 18 years or over. Do not read unless you are over 18.]
> 
> I'm very excited to take part in the Week. Several months ago I would gape at people shipping Gigolas so this turnaround feels really magical to me. I'm very grateful to the fandom (and the Sansukh following) for being there.

The final march was to start on the morrow. The utter importance of the battle ahead was not lost on Legolas Thranduilon - he could feel the gathered darkness in his bones; it pulsated with evil intent and chilled him right down to the marrow. Nonetheless, this last night devoid of watches and dangers could even be called peaceful. Legolas would do well to enjoy it and sleep as even the seemingly unlimited strength of the elves benefited from rest. But sleep eluded him. This night was the last calm before the storm. Storm…  
  
Legolas caught himself rocking on his feet, swaying gently with the rhythm of the distant and treacherous sea. He looked at his hands. They seemed even paler under the light of the stars. Legolas was hidden from the persistent glow of the East by the white stones of the city so his hands were not touched by the sickly red. Yet the barely noticeable quiver run through them.  
  
This night Legolas could not find his peace. He had fled the room he shared with Gimli to let the starlight sooth him but to no avail. Gimli's steady presence back in the room hadn't helped either. Legolas was a doughty warrior accustomed to hardships and he would face all might of Mordor even like this, spent by struggling with the sea-longing. But his friends would worry…  
  
"Can't sleep again, laddie?"  
  
Legolas jumped and turned to find Gimli, who appeared out of thin air as if summoned by the mere thoughts alone. If Gimli could sneak up on him, then Legolas indeed was in trouble. The alarm had to have been visible on his face because Gimli's own expression contorted with concern.  
  
"Are you alright? Is that the battle ahead which makes you fret? Or are you hiding a wound from the battle before?" Suddenly Gimli's eyes shone with understanding. "It's… Is it that longing? Is that why you haven't slept at all since the dratted river?"  
  
Legolas sighed and looked away from Gimli. He felt absolutely powerless. For the occasion of the peaceful night Gimli wasn't wearing his customary gauntlets and his hand on Legolas' forearm was warm, unexpectedly grounding. Legolas found his voice.  
  
"This yearning is like an unrelenting tide rocking a ship - it jerks me from my slumber every time I begin to fall into a dream. It hits and hits and hits… And there is no escape, no bargain or treaty I can make," Legolas whispered. "My will is almost spent."  
  
"Maybe you just need to find your sea-legs? Remember how sick I was onboard the ships at first? Mayhap your sickness will pass as well in time?" Gimli's gruff voice sounded cautiously encouraging but the underlying tremble betrayed his fear. Legolas squeezed his eyes shut. This utter hopelessness would be his undoing. Alas for the gulls!  
  
But yet again Gimli recalled Legolas from his dark thoughts, shaking his hand insistently until Legolas looked at him once more.  
  
"There is a way among our people…" Gimli fell silent looking irate with himself for the pause. "Foolish, foolish dwarf!" he mumbled angrily before releasing Legolas and starting to hit his own head with his huge fists. Legolas was so astonished by this sudden behavior he could feel the gravity of the situation dissipate into thin air. But then Gimli again caught Legolas' eyes and froze on the spot with his hands still clutching his hair. He straightened abruptly and cleared his throat. At last, he started again:  
  
"There is a language my people speak that is more secret than even khuzdul." Catching Legolas' expression he scowled. "Yes, we have more than one secret language, what of it?" He seethed for a moment and, having braced himself once more, continued, "Spoken, this language can be used in many a way. Yet we practice it mindfully holding it sacred." For a brief moment Legolas could feel the breath of the mysterious vastness that was fabled Khazad-dum fill the air. "I can wield this language now to help you fall asleep." The pride for his people shone in Gimli's eyes but he still looked uncomfortable as if the offer was not one lightly given.  
  
"To sleep? Are you going to sing me a lullaby, Master Dwarf?" Legolas went for the obvious jest to break the tension that suddenly hung in the air.  
  
But Gimli didn't rise to the bait. He continued to look searchingly at Legolas.  
  
"It is a language of power that we create; like a liquid it then can be put in one vessel or the other serving the purpose we choose. It can be used to help you now. But I won't lie - it's not an easy speech."  
  
Legolas was confused. The grave tone of his friend was strange and unfamiliar. Obviously, Legolas was offered something of a great value to a dwarf. But an elf was not a dwarf and dwarven treasures might yet prove to be too harsh and unbearable for a firstborn of Ilúvatar.  
  
But Legolas' elven eyes could still see the deep concern that Gimli had hidden under defensive challenge and some nervous energy. Gimli cared for him. And Legolas could trust his friend. With that epiphany doubts and tension fled Legolas at last.  
  
"What do I need to do?"  
  
Gimli looked stricken for a moment but then he gathered himself and appeared calm and unyielding like a rocky shore, immovable in the face of unrelenting waves. Whether the calm was assumed or genuine Legolas could no longer tell. He followed Gimli back into the darkness of their room.  
  
\-->*<\--  
  
Legolas knew mortals slept with their eyes closed - to shroud themselves in darkness. He couldn't understand that need for another coverlet; yet now, it seemed, darkness enveloped him whether he closed his eyes or not.  
  
Gimli stood behind him, the only presence Legolas could tolerate at his back in this darkness. The cloth rustled in the silence and Legolas shivered despite himself.  
  
"Give me your hands". Legolas settled his hands at the small of his back. Gimli worried that Legolas' shoulders would be strained come morning but what's a little strain compared to another anxious night spent in longing?  
  
Strong calloused hands were binding Legolas' wrists together with slow deliberate movements barely distracting him from the visions of the sea that burned even brighter in the darkness of the room.  
  
The language of power was a dialogue; an exchange. Power freely given was that much more potent. "Would you see that power abused?" the niggling voice in Legolas' head kept asking despite the visions, despite the trust. Legolas trembled. It was just a play, nothing in this darkness should feel real. And yet, he could almost taste his fear, the bitterness on his tongue warring with a sea salt for dominance. Legolas wasn't unclad or kneeling. How little, indeed, one needed to feel vulnerable - just a small binding, just a symbol of surrender.  
  
Gimli finished the last knot. Elvish powers were not unlimited and the binding gave Legolas limits.  
  
He felt like a tightly stretched string or a shore forever caught in place even as a high tide was rising and drawing near. Every nerve tense and exposed. Just waiting.  
  
Gimli pulled his hand down and Legolas knelt. The warm palms spread over his shoulders, the breath warmer still brushed his ear. "Go to sleep," he heard a whisper as the crest of that tide hung over his head. Then it crashed on the shore, and between one breath and the next Legolas went under.  
  
\-->*<\--  
  
The pale light that waked Legolas was not gentle. The sun was high up in the sky hiding behind grey clouds. The wake-up was abrupt, nothing like an elven dream which blended with reality until one completely engulfed the other.  
  
"Good morrow!" the gruff voice said somewhere nearby and Legolas tensed. He was lying on the bed in their room, his shoulders strained a bit; Gimli was undoing the binding on Legolas' wrists.  
  
Just as abruptly the last night came to Legolas - the longing and despair, the enveloping darkness and his own frailty and vulnerability. The gentle murmur that sent him to sleep. Yet awakening left him with some inexplicable unease. As if something was catching up with him.  
  
Legolas sat in the bed. Gimli's face was inscrutable, offering no clue as to what his friend thought about Legolas, now that he saw him weakened and succumbed to mortal's sleep. The sheer unnaturalness of what Legolas did hit him full force. He enjoyed the darkness devoid of starlight, sleep devoid of dreams and existence, however brief, devoid of control. That all should have been absolutely foreign to him.  
  
Suddenly the room felt too small, like a cage, and Legolas wanted nothing but to flee it as soon as possible. Only words of Gimli - that the ritual of language had to be finished properly - kept him still.  
  
"Is it over now?" Legolas asked hating that his voice betrayed some of his unease. He waited for polite but symbolic dismissal looking determinedly everywhere but at Gimli. That's why Gimli's reply caught him by surprise.  
  
"No, it's not."  
  
Legolas turned abruptly, shocked, and met Gimli's eyes.  
  
"You gave me power. Now's the time to return it to the source."  
  
"And how do you propose we do that?" Legolas said aiming for levity but his voice trembled.  
  
Gimli didn't smile ruining again Legolas' attempts to break the tension. He just looked steadily at Legolas until, at last, he took a deep breath and suddenly enveloped Legolas in a big hug.  
  
"That's how," Gimli mumbled in his ear.  
  
Legolas felt something deep inside him loosen up. As if he finally remembered who he was. Gimli laid himself bare by offering something truly precious for him risking getting rejection and worse in return. And he did it to help Legolas. The comfortable warmth of the embrace suddenly reminded Legolas that his sleep was not devoid of starlight - because Gimli was with him.  
  
When they finally parted Legolas was smiling at his friend who now looked even more uncomfortable than last night.  
  
"Thank you, mellon-nin, for this gift." He bowed in the manner of Elves which made Gimli blush a bit.  
  
"Found your sea-legs, did you?" Gimli asked, the gruffness of his voice not hiding his embarrassment.  
  
"Almost, almost." Legolas couldn't stop smiling.  
  
But then a sudden thought came to him. The language of power was known to all peoples of Middle Earth; the dwarves, though, might be the only race treating it like a spiritual practice. Yet, Legolas couldn't help but wonder.  
  
"Gimli-nin, this language of your people is, in truth, wondrous. And if my sleep was but a taste of it, what other purposes may it serve?"  
  
Gimli got even more red in the face, fidgeting a little where he stood. Finally, he slapped Legolas on the arm. "As if you don't know, you rascal!" He turned to leave the room. "The breakfast is waiting, so get you ready and don't dally!" And with a final huff he left, or rather fled, holding to as much dignity as Legolas' silent stare would allow.  
  
Legolas would gladly laugh at Gimli but, for once, he found himself completely agreeing with his friend. He pulled the coverlet until it hid him and his ears that burned with the blush and began waiting for his flighty dignity to return.  


**Author's Note:**

> This work is dedicated to all those who screamed silently in the dead of night unable to sleep feeling with each breath how they slowly but inevitably fall into another, surreal world. And also to those who suffered through sea-sickness. Both experience suck, in my opinion. The actual sailing rocks but that's beside the point. 
> 
> Also, I'm not too sure one can have a good night sleep while in a subspace but that's why they call them fantasies, eh?


End file.
